Watch and Learn
by yaksa
Summary: The computer observes a change in itself, and Gaz and Zim work on a project together.


A scribble told from the computer's perspective that I've been meaning to do for a while. Enjoy.

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It had been watching her for a long time. They'd been stuck on that backwards planet for a long time, and there wasn't all that much to do other than monitor the dull-as-death television broadcasts and radio signals. There was EM chatter everywhere and it took a while, but eventually the computer gave up and raised a number of fields to block the noise from its internal sensors. It could still hear everything, of course, but there was a divide between the outside and the inside, chatter and silence, insanity and peace.

A computer was not supposed to behave this way. Those that did were labeled 'insane.'

It knew that, but it did it anyway. After all, most computers didn't have a master who was crazier than a long shot. Rationality was key in this. The whole of the outside world was obviously insane. That stupid dog-machine that ran around screaming all day was insane. The missions were insane and the master was insane, and the boy that had picked a feud with him was insane as well.

Maybe that was why it took to watching her. She was an island of sanity in this irrational world.

Life was still life, though. The girl was far from its abilities to monitor her most of the time. The master would make orders; the computer would respond to the best of its ability. In the beginning, the advice and appliances and disguises it supplied were practical and neat as any AI could have produced. Now, though, it was funny. It based its offerings upon the most inane things it could come up with. Where they were supposed to blend it with normal things, the computer offered the oddest thing available. Balloons became pigs. Disguises became even more extravagant and fat.

It was playing jokes, it realized.

Later it realized it was trying to get the master caught.

Everything changed with that realization. It decided it didn't care about the mission they had been sent on---if it was a real one at all---and it just sat back and had fun everything it could do.

More than once, it just let the odd boy inside, the one the master was feuding with. Oh yes, censors and alarms went off, but they were silent and invisible and fully in its own brain. It would never let anything incriminating out, of course. Why ruin the fun by getting itself captured and ripped apart? But it was still enjoyable to watch the master jump back in surprise when he found the boy destroying something irrelevant inside the base. They would fight, the boy would be kicked out in the end. And never, ever, were any fingers pointed at the computer. It laughed in its mechanical way.

The girl was the boy's sister. Siblings were common in most species, and often they were different creatures entirely. It was true in this specimen as well. She wanted nothing to do with the master and the mission; the boy was the exact opposite. She only ever came to the base when she was looking to drag her brother back home again, and the computer watched her with a kind of admiration. She was nothing like the other people on this planet. She was cold and smart and more than willing to see others suffer for her own amusement. The other players in this game had only one of those traits.

The master defined his life on the suffering of others. The boy was smart in many ways, if not confusingly focused on the mission. And the dog-machine… well, that was something else altogether…

Gaz. That was her name.

The computer instantly granted her full access. If she ever wanted inside, she could have it.

Why the master even went to the school was a question no one could answer. Still, something happened and the place exploded and while they were building a new one, the classes were condensed. Projects were assigned. And the girl, ready to defy her brother at the drop of a tack, paired up with the master.

The first day they worked at her house. The computer only had one feed, tiny and clogged with static---a link with the master's broken control pak, actually---and it just barely picked up the exchange:

"This is really stupid. You know Dib's never going to leave us alone long enough to get anything done."

"Eh? What?" the master said most likely not paying attention. But the computer was. "It doesn't matter anyway. Where else would you---I mean we work on this… project… thing."

"We could go to your place. You probably have better research stuff, anyway."

"---What? Gaz, no! You can't go there, he'll do something horrible to you!"

"NOTHING'S AS HORRIBLE AS WHAT I'M GONNA DO TO YOU IF YOU COME IN HERE AGAIN!!" And then quietly to the master alone, "Besides, it would piss off Dib."

She spoke it with that sly grin and the master answered in the same tone. "Heh. You do have a point, pig-beast."

The next day when the door opened, the two of them piled inside and the computer felt the boy skulking around the periphery, watching. They stopped in the living room at first, markers and cardboard and binders of notes piled on the sofa. The dog-machine was elsewhere, running erratic circles in the confines of a lower level. The girl was stuck using the touch screen television as the internet access until she threw a book at the master and demanded something better.

"Look, if you're not gonna do anything, at least give me a decent place to do research." She was scary when she was mad, and the master eventually let her down to the second level. He stood there watching her as if she was a plague waiting to happen, and the computer smothered its silent laughter.

They spread the poster boards out on the floor and the girl typed and printed out papers and pictures. She would hand them to the master with a glare, and he would take them and place them on the boards with paste. The visuals were just part of the project, however. They actually had to present this.

"Here," she ordered darkly, shoving a stack of papers into the master's hands. "Read this and you'd better actually know this stuff tomorrow or you'll regret ever pairing up with me for this thing."

He regarded the papers with bland eyes. "Yes. I will know it well. I will know it so well that it will amaze you."

A glare and she punched him hard. "Shut up and read, moron."

For hours after she left, the master sat and ignored the papers, but late into the night, he stalked back to them more than once and stared down at them with a hint of fear in his eyes.

He read them all twice and had the words memorized by morning.

The computer laughed and looked forward to seeing them back again.

The next day the girl had him recite the words, and she hit him more than once when it wasn't to her standard.

"No, you idiot. It has to sound like you understand what you're talking about. You can't just say it word for word."

"Zim does not have time re-learn this nonsense. Stupid earth-child, what does any of thi--- DO NOT HIT ZIM AGAIN!!" But she typed it up a second time and shoved it at him and he learned it again as she wanted him to know it.

The next day they practiced for a third time, and once the girl was satisfied, she took everything with her and left with a stern warning.

From what the computer heard, the project and the presentation went well, and the girl didn't come back the day after that. It still watched for her, though, knowing it would see her and hoping it could speak with her somehow. Beings alike as they were should at least meet. And besides, the computer needed a little sanity in its life.   
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Thanks for reading. Reviews warm my soul. :)


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